


Aurora (Kindle III)

by fightfortherightsofhouseelves, gryffindormischief



Series: Kindle [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Archaeologist Harry, F/M, Family goes to Egypt, Indiana Jones Harry, Kindleverse, Muggle AU, hinny au, jily live, lots of Mummy trivia for all you connoisseurs out there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightfortherightsofhouseelves/pseuds/fightfortherightsofhouseelves, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gryffindormischief/pseuds/gryffindormischief
Summary: Potters are known for wild hair, mischief making, and sharp wits. Weasleys are known for freckles and red hair, cheek, and minds that won't quit. It only makes sense that when the families unite, the happy couple (plus children) end up on a jaunt to Egypt worthy of an adventure film.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Series: Kindle [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1270226
Comments: 19
Kudos: 36





	Aurora (Kindle III)

**Author's Note:**

> hello it's us again, welcoming the new year with some Hinny magic in the Kindleverse! please enjoy & let us know what you think :)

“So I love our kids.”

Harry smirks at Ginny and nods. “I figured that.”

“And I love pizza.”

“It’s at least 10% of your personality,” Harry nods, spearing another kalamata olive with only minor slipping and sliding around the plate.

Ginny shrugs, accepting the statement like one does obvious facts. Whatever she was about to share is paused when the waitress, Kimberly, refreshes their drinks and takes their entree orders - no pizza or even flat bread in sight.

Once Ginny’s ordered her ratatouille and Harry’s decided between the stuffed chicken breast and lobster ravioli - choosing the latter - the previous conversation is resurrected somewhat clumsily by Harry. “So the pizza?”

“Oh right,” Ginny sighs and takes a long sip of her mojito, “Mm. That’s good,” Harry smirks and she continues, “But yeah I feel like we haven’t eaten anything but pizza since Albus’ birthday.”

While Ginny swipes another slice of delicious, fresh baked bread, Harry says, “That’s true, but also on me. We’ve both been so busy and Teddy knows how to do the online order.”

“Is that why I found the remains of four orders of chocolate lava cake in the bin on Monday?”

“Nah. That was all me. I had a- weird afternoon.”

Ginny slurps the last of her drink and levels her best ‘tell me your secrets’ glare, honed mostly by her relationship with Harry, the kids still tell her everything. A little too much sometimes, particularly about bowel movements. 

“Well you remember how Tuesday I had that meeting with my department head?”

Ginny grins and steals one of his lobster ravioli. “I remember. We almost went two rounds that morning because you wanted to avoid it.”

“How does that hurt anyone?”

“I dunno, Harry, maybe you?” Ginny pauses to moan around her stolen bite, “A little thing called department evals?”

Harry shoves his glasses back up his nose and shrugs, “When you hear what happened in my meeting, you’ll realize my department head will tolerate many things including being 30 minutes late because I was shagging my amazingly hot wife.”

“If anyone was shagging anyone, ‘twas I, my good sir, shagging you,” Ginny fires back.

They both get a bit lost in reminiscing over their particularly memorable Tuesday morning where three children spent a teacher work day in far away Devon and two parents enjoyed blissful oblivion for a blissful few hours. Some sleeping, some very decidedly not sleeping.

Kimberly’s return jars them from their reveries and also provides a second mojito for Ginny and gin & tonic for Harry. 

Once she’s left and they’ve clinked glasses, Harry takes a long sip before setting his drink down. “So the meeting - Dr. Mattingly, you know? The one with the - ”

“Freaky long beard?”

Harry laughs, “I was going to say Egyptology focus but that too.”

There’s a brief pause as Ginny sips at her mojito, eyeing Harry. “Harry, my sweet,” he raises one brow and Ginny laughs but continues, “Have you noticed when you’re nervous you tend to - ”

“Babble?”

“I was going to say needlessly world build but that works too.”

“That’s just rude, I craft stories you could live in for a week,” Harry shoots back.

Ginny pauses halfway through buttering a piece of bread fresh from the kitchen. “Did the actual meeting take a week? Because it feels like it did.”

“See? Rude again.”

“See? Stalling again,” Ginny parrots.

“Mattingly has some - honestly I did not even sort of listen to the excuse because my brain just heard ‘Harry we want you to go to Egypt’ and then shrill beeping.”

“One of those out of body things?”

Harry snorts. “Well that and the chem lab two levels down was on fire.”

Ginny’s expression is unreadable for a minute as she takes him in, lips downturned in thought. “You want to go.”

“I mean - it’s a dig! And Egypt. I’m legitimately torn though, Gin,” Harry winces and fiddles with his fork, “I hated being away from you and Ted - now with Al and James. Plus I can’t go around putting my career first all the time like an arsehole.”

Harry’d babble and recriminate himself to no end if Ginny didn’t lay her hand on his fiddling fingers and clear her throat. “Well. I do have some news of my own.”

He smiles softly at the giddy excitement giving her cheeks a brilliant red flush. “Go on then.”

“You remember that paper I co-authored with Dr. Elby? The one on artistic expression and refugee children?” Ginny starts. Where Harry had been fidgeting nervously with his news, Ginny is a steady glowing warmth. Just watching the excitement in her eyes is blissful. He could drown in them happily - 

And now those gorgeous brown eyes are narrowing at him. “Harry.”

Pasting on his smarmiest grin, Harry leans forward, bats his eyes, and props his face between his hands. “Yes dear?”

“Care to listen to news or are you just planning to ogle me all night?”

“Not a bad pastime.”

She flicks the tip of his nose. “Dr. Elby and I have been chatting about it and you know about our case studies - well I didn’t know it but she has a friend in publishing and - ”

“A book deal?” Harry half shouts, earning a couple of glares at his inappropriate behavior. Kimberly returns with her best customer service smile and encourages them to make selections from the dessert menu. Not that it takes much convincing.

“Now I can really be your groupie,” Harry sighs, content. “Do I get a signed copy?”

Ginny’s grin is positively scandalous, “We’ll see - now wait a minute, you’ve got me all hot and bothered - and decidedly off topic.”

Her scowl is certainly intended to get Harry’s mind back on track. This, however, is a seriously misguided method considering Harry finds almost nothing more attractive than Ginny’s reddened cheeks, slightly widened eyes, and clenched jaw. Basically almost angry Ginny is highly irresistible which, as a side note, creates some very confusing motivations. 

“Harry, you’ve got that look - you haven’t heard a word I said.”

He shakes his head and blinks at Ginny. “I - what look?”

“The ‘Ginny is hot when she’s mad and I feel morally convicted about that feeling’ look.”

Harry narrows his eyes and only pauses when Kimberly delivers their slice of no flour chocolate cake. He swipes his fork through the raspberry sauce and gestures for Ginny to resume her earlier explanation. “Go on.”

“Long story short,” Ginny starts around a mouthful of cake, “I want to take a sabbatical. Work’s on board because they love people getting published. But the husband-wife okay - ”

“Do we need a pros and cons? I’m pretty sold - are there any cons? Do you want to write it?”

Ginny shrugs. “I don’t really need one…”

“Logistically how does this all work?” Harry asks, “It seems too easy.”

With a wry shake of her head, Ginny lifts Harry’s fingers to her lips and leaves a kiss on his knuckles. “My adorable little pessimist.”

“I am a person who naturally questions the world around them,” Harry says with a sniff. “I’m a man of science.”

They demolish the shared dessert pretty quickly and before long their bill is paid and Ginny’s snuggling underneath Harry’s arm for the walk home. Harry lets out a contented sigh as Ginny’s fingers slip between the buttons of his shirt, the band of her ring cold against his bare skin. He presses a kiss to her forehead. “So it’s summer hols too.”

“Ted can come with us no worries,” Ginny concludes as they pause at the crosswalk, only light traffic trundling over the streets shining with shallow rain puddles. “Now that we’ve squared that away - ”

“Should I not point out how very far we are from being squared away?”

The lights change and they trot across the street still arm in arm. “Harry, there are times for squaring away and there are times for - squaring away,” Ginny says, the pitch of her voice lowering as she rises on tiptoe to murmur in his ear.

Harry sucks in a breath as they leave the busier city streets behind for the quiet avenues near their home. Out of habit borne of about a decade of light sleeping children living in his home, Harry slowly slips his key into the lock and is gradually pushing it open when Ginny’s hands find their way around his middle. “Nobody’s home, dear.”

And it really is good that the boys are currently at a Grandma and Grandpa Weasley sleepover because Harry’s self control when Ginny’s nipping at his ear and her fingers are working at the buttons of his shirt is really close to nil. 

“Gin - oh hell you make me hate buttons.”

She hums and as soon as they’re inside, pins him against the door. Luckily she has enough sense left to flick the lock before continuing her torturous efforts with hideously slow and exact movements. Ginny grins. “I love them.”

“Should I be offended that you,” Harry pauses as Ginny finally works his shirt open and nips at his collarbone. “That you assume all it takes is a good meal for me to put out?”

“Am I wrong?” Ginny mutters.

“I need to be wooed.”

“Do you now - ah!”

In the midst of their repartee, Harry managed to somewhat regain his senses. At least enough to grasp around Ginny’s waist and lift her off her feet. She tips forward onto his shoulder and grunts. “How he-man of you.”

“I’m very macho.”

Ginny gently scratches at his back as her heels slip from her feet, suspended mid air as they are. “Yes, you are. Plus I’m getting what a view right now.”

Chuckling, Harry pauses at the foot of their bed. “Shall I clench a bit before I set you down?”

She lightly jabs his side and in response he drops her to the mattress with a bounce. While he tosses his shirt aside and works his trousers down and open, Ginny wriggles until she manages to drag the zip down on her dress. 

After the deep purple garment of temptation is tossed aside, her hands go for the waistband of her tights. Which apparently does not meet Harry’s approval. He grasps her wrists and lifts them over Ginny’s head, pushing them into the mattress with a brief squeeze. “Let me?”

Ginny’s eyes flash and she lifts one foot to rest against Harry’s bare shoulder. “Have at it.”

With gentle drags of his fingers, Harry pulls the dark tights - and the lacy underthings hidden beneath - down Ginny’s legs, over the tips of her pale toes.

Soon his teasing kisses follow the same trail upwards with warm, teasing presses. A sigh rushes past Ginny’s lips, one of her trembling hands finds its way to the tangled mess of Harry’s dark hair while the other slips into her own red locks. 

“Harry - ”

He lifts his head just enough to smirk at her and would resume his earlier efforts without Ginny’s insistent tugs at his hair, shoulders, and anything else she can reach. “Up here then.”

Harry’s smile is softer, that familiar tilt that Ginny thinks of as the pure embodiment of her best friend. Over time she’s realized that the heat of their attraction hasn’t faded, at least not in any way she regrets. But it has matured, deepened into something she can’t quite name. The younger version of herself might have been immature enough to think love was some stopping point. Now she can’t even quite put words to what it is but instead something she knows deep down better than she knows her own mind.

He brushes his nose along her cheek. “You’re suddenly distracted. Where’s that one track mind that almost had me half naked in the street?”

“So terribly sorry,” Ginny says quietly against Harry’s lips, “Forgive me?”

Harry settles over her - comfortably, familiarly - and laughs softly. “Why of course.”

And then she focuses on making up for it, leaving Harry in a glowing, sweaty heap tangled between white cotton sheets some hours later, and herself grinning, catching her breath sprawled against his chest. 

* * *

“Not fair!” 

Harry glances over his shoulder, eyes scanning the dim-lit room to see James’ small mouth stretched into a pout, a rather Ginny-like crease on his forehead as his feet pound impatiently under the duvet, into the mattress. “What is?”

“You always tuck Al first,” the little boy sniffs, crossing his arms over his chest, a sulky air about him. Apparently the ‘sulk easily’ Potter gene was inherited by his eldest just as evidently as Albus got his eyes and rumpled hair. 

“That’s not true, James. You know very well that we take turns and tonight it happened to be your brother’s. Tomorrow you’ll go first, like you did yesterday and two days before that,” Harry explains patiently, leaning in to kiss his youngest son’s forehead, push his messy fringe out of his emerald green eyes. “Night, Al.”

His son yawns in response and shifts to his side, snuggling into his pillow, fluffed dinosaur squeezed tightly at his chest.

“Actually, before you two fall asleep, Mum and I have some news,” Harry says and stops in the middle of the room, stealing a glance at the small heads popping from the duvets on both beds.

A very long and annoyed sigh sounds from James’ side, his head raising and hitting the pillow hard, huffing.

“Not another brother.”

Harry stifles a chuckle. “No, not another brother, but nice to know your thoughts on the topic.”

“What then?” James says impatiently. In his own bed, Al stirs, rumpled head appearing from behind the green dinosaur.

“We’re going to Egypt. For the summer, I’ll have a new dig and -”

“Is Teddy coming?”

“Will there be mummies?”

“Can I push Al into the hole you’ll dig, Dad?”

“Dad, James is mean again,” Al sniffs and disappears under the duvet.

Harry feels his head throbbing with the many questions and knows it’ll take some good work to get them both appeased and ready for bed again. In hindsight, it might have not been his best idea yet to spring the news on them at bedtime. You live and you learn, apparently. 

On the other side of the house, a slightly different scene unfolds.

“Help me with the rest of the plates, Ted?” Ginny asks, hands under the warm, sudsy water, focused on rinsing the plates. She’d always found it easier to gather her thoughts, collect them and spread them before her as though they’re on display, as though she needs to see them to be able to choose her words, ever careful.

“Sure, right up,” Teddy chimes and nearly bumps into Ginny as she spins to relieve him of the plates. Fortunately, besides a small clatter of china and some soapy water in Teddy’s eyes, not much damage is done.

“So,” Ginny smiles, wipes her hands on a kitchen towel. She takes a moment to regard Teddy, his recent growth spurt still taking her by surprise. He’d only been a little over her knees when he’d glued his toothy grin to Ron’s doughnut glass case and now he’s ten and so tall, already so much like the father Ginny’d only glanced in Harry’s old photo albums, auburn hair and big, kind eyes.

Teddy’s brown eyes grow larger as the seconds pass, apprehension and a little dash of excitement in their depths.

“Are we sharing secrets?”

“Not really secrets, but there’s some exciting news,” Ginny winks, claims the nearby chair as Teddy bites his lips, eyes fixed on her. “We’ll be spending the summer in Egypt. What do you think?”

“I need a moment.”

Ginny stifles her laugh, mind wandering briefly towards Teddy’s small but growing Egypt obsession, books and figures and encyclopedias stacked in an ever growing pile in his room - something Harry likes to point out she’s solely responsible for. As far as Ginny’s concerned, all she’d done was watch The Mummy with Teddy on a Friday night, when Harry was away for a conference and her boys were on grandparents Potter care.

Honestly there are worse things than Teddy enjoying an adventure film with occasionally questionable accuracy when it comes to Egyptology. It’s not like Ginny kept Harry from giving Teddy The Talk. That is, the ‘it’s super fun but not super accurate’ talk. 

Beyond their mutual enjoyment of the movie, Ginny and Teddy also shared quite a few ‘don’t laugh he’s being serious’ glances over the course of the evening.

Ginny’s not quite sure why The Mummy is so different from Indiana Jones to Harry. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t told him about her fantasies related to The Mummy yet. Maybe she’ll save it for when they’re on location - she can just throw some period clothing in a carry on.

“So I was thinking - ”

Ginny blinks and refocuses on Teddy, who luckily appears to have been on his own little rabbit trail. “Yeah?”

“Well. Do you think Harry would be offended if I said he was like Evie and you’re like O'Connell?”

“Did you say this to Harry?”

“Yes! And then he got all weird,” Teddy says, cheeks flushed and fingers gripping his serviette. “I tried to tell him Evie is amazing!”

Ginny sighs, pulling a bag of frozen dough from the freezer. She’s domestic enough that she’ll slice up pre-made dough from her mum instead of buying it in the frozen section. Home made by proxy.

“Ted, grab the wax paper?”

Soon enough they’ve got the oven pre-heating and they’re lining the sheet with frozen dough scoops. “I’ll have a chat with Harry about the film.”

Teddy nods, eyes not leaving the sheet as he carefully sets another dough scoop on it, his tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth. By the time Ginny’s finished the dishes, Teddy’s cookies are ready to go in and the oven has dinged. 

Ginny splits one of the smaller scoops and gives half to Teddy while the egg timer begins ticking away. Teddy takes a bite and darts his gaze to Ginny a couple of times before he finally says, “The mummies don’t actually - uh. Maybe Harry’s worried I’ll get into trouble with the artifacts.”

“I can have a chat with him,” Ginny says as she ruffles Teddy’s hair, “Let him know there’s no danger of us starting any trouble with the undead since I can scientifically confirm they’re highly and permanently dead.”

Teddy nods. “Okay. But if he’s real worried we could just get a cat or two. That seemed pretty helpful when they were in Cairo. Why didn’t they just bring them - oh!”

Ginny smiles. “Another question?”

“Does Harry speak Egyptian like Evie?”

For a minute, and perhaps not to her credit, Ginny’s mind wanders a bit at the thought of Harry and his ability with languages. It might sound weird but one of her _things_ is Harry speaking in languages she doesn’t understand. Especially when he murmurs things that must be sultry and delicious against her ear. 

“Ginny?”

Clearing her throat, Ginny tries to smile and will the flush from her cheeks. “Some - he probably has a bit of a working knowledge of it since it’s not his main specialty.”

He nods again, digesting the information until he startles at the egg timer’s ding. Ginny pulls the cookies from the oven. As she sets them to cool, Ginny grins again, for real this time. “All I know is I’ll be devastated if we don’t have at least one camel race.”

The weeks before June comes around, threatening to bring July sooner than any of them can realise, roll between meetings for both Harry and Ginny, impulsive shopping, bouts of uncontrolled enthusiasm from the boys and then some uncontrolled tears, impromptu visits from Molly (who seems to have become convinced that if she doesn’t feed them as much as possible before they leave, they might all starve) and general mayhem. 

Harry sighs wholeheartedly when there’s only three days left, eyeing the ridiculous amounts of boxes, fully crossed lists and then fresh, new lists lying across the house. At least he won’t have to spend the evening in their company.

Happy to swap boxes with the warmer presence of his mother plus father and Sirius, Harry straps all three boys onto the backseats of the family car, smiles at Ginny as she applies her lipstick with help from the rearview mirror, and turns the key twice, wheels soon rolling against the gravel.

“So what exactly are you planning on discovering in Egypt?” Sirius asks with a tone that clearly states all groundbreaking discoveries have already been made and all that Harry’s getting from this trip is biceps from the generous amount of digging he’ll be doing. He pushes his chair backwards a little, lazily shifting so James, who’d been perched on his knee since the moment he entered his grandparents’ house, can better reach Snuffles’ scruffy tail with his toy fishing rod.

“More dead people,” Harry drawls. “Ted, check on Al, please,” he adds, turning his head over his shoulder to where Teddy plays with a new set of Lego and Al is clearly...not there anymore. He’d developed a new sense for perceiving when his sons are sneaking away somewhere over the years, he no longer needs eyesight for it.

And a good thing too, since it’s completely shit.

“Fascinating,” Sirius grins, bouncing James a bit on his knees to his namesake’s delight. “Are you visiting Hamunaptra?”

Harry frowns. “Now you’re making things up.”

“The Mummy,” Sirius scoffs, offended. “The City of the Dead? The ancient lost city that served for many centuries as the resting place for the Pharaohs of Egypt and their wealth?” he continues when Harry’s frown deepens, his eyebrows nearly blending into his hairline. 

“Never seen it,” Harry shrugs.

“You’ve never seen The Mummy?” Sirius exhales loudly, his chair shifting enough to startle poor Snuffles and put a sad end to James’ fishing game - who quickly regains his composure and hops off to announce himself the new leader of Teddy and Al’s Lego game.

“Shush,” Harry grunts, alarmed, his eyes speedly scanning the room. “Ginny doesn’t know that.”

Sirius stares at him. 

“We watched the movie at the beginning of our relationship and - er, I fell asleep probably ten minutes in. It seemed to mean a lot to her that I watch it, she thought it mandatory for any Archaeology student, I don’t know,” he sighs, speaking in hushed tones. “She took me by surprise when she asked if I loved it the next day and somehow I said I did and then it was too late to take it back.”

“And you’ve been lying to your wife for over a decade,” Sirius snorts, leans closer to Harry.

To this, Harry’s expression turns positively alarmed. “It’s not like it’s come up in conversation much.”

“She’ll find it out,” Sirius pats Harry’s knee and stands up. “And as much as I’d like to be there and see it unfold, I’m really too afraid to be close as vengeance is inflicted upon you. Death will come on swift wings,” he laughs, leaving Harry staring after him in horror.

“What do you mean?” Harry calls after his godfather, but Sirius only laughs louder as he makes his way towards the dinner table.

“Watch the movie, Potter.” 

But Harry’s biting retort is lost when his father slams the living room doors open and strides in with a pyramid-shaped cake, exultantly announcing himself the proudest dad. This outward expression of fatherly feelings is followed by a more reserved Lily, who treads happily to Harry’s armchair, kisses him on both cheeks and tugs him to the table.

“What’s all this?” Harry asks, very much surprised by all the preparations and the speed with which they’ve gone through - but then Ginny smirks at him from the other end of the table and Harry just knows she’d had her hand elbow-deep in this. 

“If we’re to miss our son’s birthday, we said we’d at least try to make up for it,” Lily smiles at him as James grins widely, and Harry’s immediate protests die with the sound of the door bell. “Oh, Hermione and Ron are here. Sirius, could you -?”

“I think this one beat me to it,” Sirius grins at a waddling Al, hurrying as fast as his small feet can take him to his cousin Rose. “I swear that sprog is like a bloodhound.”

“I prefer to say he has his father’s instincts about who and what is where and why,” Harry says with a raise of his chin. 

For herself, Ginny rolls her eyes and takes a long sip of her lemonade. “That’s not what you preferred when he sniffed out your chocolate digestives and ate half the pack last week.”

When Harry murmurs something about the sanctity of the marital relationship, Sirius laughs under his breath and before he can get beyond half-whispering ‘The Mummy’ in pig latin, Harry’s boot is planted firmly in his shin. He finds his dad’s gaze across the room and though his laughter is genuine, it decidedly does not reach his hazel eyes.

In a particularly mature reaction, Sirius sticks his tongue out at Harry and folds his arms. Lily, who catches most of the interchange and perhaps manages to fill in the blanks through her years of careful study of the Potter and Black men throughout the ages, shares a commiserating grin with her son.

It can’t progress beyond that once the group is in a joyous uproar that always seems to come with the entrance of another member of their ever growing family. In this instance, the dramatics seem tripled based on the entry of three Granger-Weasleys at once.

As Harry’s come to expect over the years, Ron immediately pounces on the teasing energy still floating in the air and soon dinner and dessert pass by in a beautiful, wonderful, mad haze of laughter and family.

After, when Harry’s helping his dad clear the table, James lets out a long sigh and finally gives voice to whatever’s been troubling him over the evening. “I know it’s a bit hypocritical - let me begin with that.”

Harry lets out a low laugh and swipes another dish dry. “I give you permission to proceed without comment.”

James nudges his son with his shoulder. “I - I know it’s short and we were gone over a year but.”

“You can say you’ll miss us, Dad. I won’t flay you alive.”

“I was a bit whiny last night and your mum did let me have it,” James says with a snicker.

Harry laughs, knowing full well how completely a wife can hand a husband his proverbial head for hypocrisy or whatever other increasingly annoying behavioral act is currently flourishing. It’s funny when observing it in his parents, and even looking backward in his own life. Admittedly in the moment he can become something of a bear depending on what mood gave rise to the aforementioned behavioral act.

“How’d it go with the Weasleys?”

“We really drove home the whole ‘it’s only for the summer’ bit,” Harry says with a grimace. “It fever pitched in drama when Molly realized we’d be away for Ginny’s birthday.”

“Nobody gets into a strop like Molly Weasley,” James says with a grin, “And I will deny I said that ‘til the day I die.”

Harry grins and wraps his father into a light hug before he catches a glimpse of gray flecks of hair peppering his old man’s rumpled mane all over. His grin stretches wider.

“So should I fear turning fifty? I see it hasn’t treated you all that well,” he smirks, green eyes fixing on James’ hair, then swipe down to his very offended pout.

Luckily, the Potter senior recovers his good wits soon. “Nah, I’d say you should worry ‘bout turning forty. I’m much more handsome than you.”

A familiar firm hand on his shoulder squashes whatever else he was about to say and Lily smiles at Harry so kindly, so beautifully, a mother’s love brimming so evidently in her emerald green eyes, Harry’s heart leaps. His mind suddenly strays to Ginny and the way she looks at their own children when she holds them, when they’re sleeping, on the day their cries first pierced the world.

“You’ve always been the most handsome boy in the room, dear. Except for poor eyesight and unruly hair, you’ve probably inherited all else from me anyway,” Lily winks and quickly turns on her heels to help prep her grandchildren for the trip home, her soft hand brushing Harry’s cheek as she passes by him.

James simply stares besottedly after her, a look in his eyes that sends Harry’s food back up instantly. He doesn’t even know why he bothers making up an excuse for quitting the scene as fast as possible, his father couldn’t have heard him anyway.

“Potters and Lupin,” Ron booms as they’re ready to part ways in the parking lot outside, his hands rummaging in his pockets as Hermione squeezes Rose tighter to her chest. Three pairs of eyes fix him expectantly, excitement concealed poorly in Teddy and Al’s cases, and not at all, in James’ case.

“I have searched far and wide for what I’m about to offer you,” Ron carries on importantly, “but fear not - it has all been worth it. I can now give you,” he stops a bit, tongue popping out at the right corner as he hands each boy a toy cat, “a talisman for your protection.”

Ron finishes with a flourish of both hands and Teddy nearly trips over his feet in his haste to both hug Ron and the cat till their lungs die out. James and Al, on the other hand, do not look much convinced but Ginny - and here’s Harry's true surprise - seems to battle herself in a fight against her better, motherly instincts: to snatch a cat for her own self or behave.

“Cats aren’t protective shields against evil, Ron,” Harry whispers over Teddy’s head, his arms around both his boys’ shoulders, subtly removing them from Ginny’s near vicinity. 

But she does hear, sharp hearing as she’s always had, because she promptly replies, “Ugh, sorry, but they are. It was in The Mummy, remember?”

“Of course I do,” Harry chuckles nervously and begins to stir his family towards the car. “Come now, everyone, there’s packing waiting for us at home. Ron, Hermione,” he dips his head a bit, gives Rose a kiss on the forehead and hurriedly makes to jump into the car. “See you in September, goodbye.”

Ron manages to land a sharp flick to the back of Harry’s ear. “I’d wager there’s only more packing because Dr. Potter can’t say no to a book.”

“Should I defend Ginny’s honour?”

“I hate when you’re deliberately obtuse,” Ron snorts, “Bring me back a canopic jar, Evie.”

Harry manages to flick Ron off and help Ginny shepherd their brood into the car.

Luckily, it’s Teddy who leads the conversation on their way home, chattering away about mummies and cats and Evie with so much gusto he often forgets to breathe. 

“I see the boys are now partial to cats too,” Ginny giggles as she closes the door to James and Al’s room later, tiptoeing her way to their own bedroom. “I think they’ll enjoy Egypt very much,” she adds, kisses Harry’s cheek as she snuggles next to him under the covers.

“Believe me, I’d be as giddy if there wasn’t half the house left to pack tomorrow,” he yawns and wraps his arms around her.

“Can’t wait to be there,” Ginny whispers and Harry can feel her toothy grin spreading wider. He pulls her tightly to his chest, nestles his chin in the dip between her shoulder blade.

“Same, Gin. Same.”


End file.
